I was thinking the same thing when I heard it!!!! what a joke....what they never mention is if guns were outlawed all the bad people that shouldnt have them will have them anyway. It will just make it easier for the criminal because then they will know that the regular law abiding citizen will not posess a gun to protect themselves...

Off topic but I'd like to say I've lost respect for Bob Costas. His Olympic style speeches during half time have always struck a nerve, and last night was icing on the cake.

He used the tragedy in KC as his stance on gun control. He was talking about young men with loud stereos and went babbling on about our current society. WHAT A JOKE..Bob Costas, you are a tool

Getting old is no fun, I can vouch for that. It is why I've cut down on making speeches. I started to notice the glazed over eyes in the audience. Poor old Tony Bennett at Radio City Music Hall trying to sing Santa is Coming to Town. It was sad. He could hardly keep the tune.

I'm not upset about the issue. I just think there's a time and place to bring up certain things. No one cares about HIS stance or Whitlock's. I don't want to hear about your views during a half time show. Talk about the actual game. Bob has a great voice but lacks football knowledge. His speeches are scripted and WAY too serious. Never liked the guy

As for the issue at hand, I had an Uncle commit suicide with a gun, and know of at least one other person personally who did so.

I know I'm walking on thin ice here, so I will try to use as much tact as possible.

First of all I'm sorry for the loss your family suffered, I just said a prayer for them concerning the loss of your Uncle.

That being said how does your Uncle or the other person you know using a gun to kill themselves bring any relevance whatsoever to the gun debate?

If guns weren't available they would've found another one of the millions of ways possible to off themselves because their mental instabilites are causing them to lose focus of the big picture and are depressing them to the point that life isn't worth living.

We need to quit focusing on the guns and start focusing on the people. If somebody would've reached out to Belcher and gotten him some help this wouldn't have happened. Stop focusing on guns and start focusing on people.

That being said how does your Uncle or the other person you know using a gun to kill themselves bring any relevance whatsoever to the gun debate?

If guns weren't available they would've found another one of the millions of ways possible to off themselves because their mental instabilites are causing them to lose focus of the big picture and are depressing them to the point that life isn't worth living.

4a. Using the prism of the murder-suicide as a launching point, NBC's Bob Costas caused an uproar among the gun lobby with his halftime essay during the Cowboys-Eagles game on Sunday Night Football. Tweeted commentator Lou Dobbs: "The Media Left at Halftime: Bob Costas pushing gun control, quoting...who else?... a sports writer on ridding the country of the 2nd Amendment." Here's the video essay from Costas. One thing is certain: I don't think any other NBC Sports employee would have been granted the editorial freedom on such a hot-button topic.

The actual text of what Costas said:
"You knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again, ‘Something like this really puts it all in perspective.’ Well if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games. Please -- those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports, would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective.

You want some actual perspective on this? Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock, with whom I do not always agree, but, who today, said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article. 'Our current gun culture,' Whitlock wrote, 'ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead. Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's actions, (and its possible connection to football), will be analyzed.' Who knows? But here, (wrote Jason Whitlock) is what I believe, 'If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.'”

Edit: Just going to throw out some additional info:

Fights involving people with handguns are more likely to end in a homicide. (Cook, Philip J., Mark H. Moore (1995). "Gun Control". In Wilson, James Q., Joan Petersilia. Crime. Institute of Contemporary Studies Press.)

Suicide attempts made with guns are more likely to result in death than for any other method. (CE Rhyne, DI Templer, LG Brown and NB Peters, “Dimensions of Suicide: Perceptions of Lethality, Time and Agony”, in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, Vol. 25(3), 1995)

Successful suicides are more likely in households with guns. (Kellermann, A.L., F.P. Rivara, G. Somes, et al. (1992). "Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership". New England Journal of Medicine 327 (7): 467–472), see also Miller M, Hemenway D. The relationship between firearms and suicide: a review of the literature. Aggress Violent Behav 1999;4:59-75.)

Firearms account for more than 50% of suicides in the US. (National Center for Health Statistics, 2010).

4a. Using the prism of the murder-suicide as a launching point, NBC's Bob Costas caused an uproar among the gun lobby with his halftime essay during the Cowboys-Eagles game on Sunday Night Football. Tweeted commentator Lou Dobbs: "The Media Left at Halftime: Bob Costas pushing gun control, quoting...who else?... a sports writer on ridding the country of the 2nd Amendment." Here's the video essay from Costas. One thing is certain: I don't think any other NBC Sports employee would have been granted the editorial freedom on such a hot-button topic.

The actual text of what Costas said:

"You knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again, ‘Something like this really puts it all in perspective.’ Well if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games. Please -- those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports, would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective.

You want some actual perspective on this? Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock, with whom I do not always agree, but, who today, said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article. 'Our current gun culture,' Whitlock wrote, 'ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead. Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's actions, (and its possible connection to football), will be analyzed.' Who knows? But here, (wrote Jason Whitlock) is what I believe, 'If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.'”

Take away guns!! Take them all away!!

That is the easiest answer to make everyone feel all warm and fuzzy.

It is a way to make people think they are doing good by advocating what they think is right. It is an easy out.

How many of these celebs etc. spend their time volunteering to helping "people". To donate money to social programs that would get to the root of these problems.

Yes, gun violence will increase and violent crime will also continue to increase. But not because guns exist and not because any other weapons exist but because socially, economically and morally our entire system is effed up.

Show me the real statistics out there. Show me how many elderly live on peanut butter sandwhiches and no heat because they can't afford to live and they can't work.

Show me how many of these gun crimes are commited by fatherless children that are raised on the streets because either whoever is raising them is addicted to drugs or is working 16 hr days just to put food on the table.

As parents, neighbors, friends and as a society as a whole everyone needs to be held accountable for what they do to affect their own lives and the lives around them. That is our job as human beings. No one feels accountable for anything anymore, there is always something else to blame.

Take guns away but don't fix the issues that cause people to want to or need to use those guns in the first place......makes perfect sense.

__________________"I believe the game is designed to reward the ones who hit the hardest. If you can't take it, you shouldn't play." Jack Lambert.

"The Steelers drafted guys who were bigger, stronger and faster than I, but they never found one who could take my job away from me." Jack Lambert

4a. Using the prism of the murder-suicide as a launching point, NBC's Bob Costas caused an uproar among the gun lobby with his halftime essay during the Cowboys-Eagles game on Sunday Night Football. Tweeted commentator Lou Dobbs: "The Media Left at Halftime: Bob Costas pushing gun control, quoting...who else?... a sports writer on ridding the country of the 2nd Amendment." Here's the video essay from Costas. One thing is certain: I don't think any other NBC Sports employee would have been granted the editorial freedom on such a hot-button topic.

The actual text of what Costas said:

"You knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again, ‘Something like this really puts it all in perspective.’ Well if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games. Please -- those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports, would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective.

You want some actual perspective on this? Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock, with whom I do not always agree, but, who today, said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article. 'Our current gun culture,' Whitlock wrote, 'ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead. Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's actions, (and its possible connection to football), will be analyzed.' Who knows? But here, (wrote Jason Whitlock) is what I believe, 'If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.'”

Edit: Just going to throw out some additional info:

Fights involving people with handguns are more likely to end in a homicide. (Cook, Philip J., Mark H. Moore (1995). "Gun Control". In Wilson, James Q., Joan Petersilia. Crime. Institute of Contemporary Studies Press.)

Suicide attempts made with guns are more likely to result in death than for any other method. (CE Rhyne, DI Templer, LG Brown and NB Peters, “Dimensions of Suicide: Perceptions of Lethality, Time and Agony”, in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, Vol. 25(3), 1995)

Successful suicides are more likely in households with guns. (Kellermann, A.L., F.P. Rivara, G. Somes, et al. (1992). "Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership". New England Journal of Medicine 327 (7): 467–472), see also Miller M, Hemenway D. The relationship between firearms and suicide: a review of the literature. Aggress Violent Behav 1999;4:59-75.)

Firearms account for more than 50% of suicides in the US. (National Center for Health Statistics, 2010).

But let's not stop there. Let's go for the big enchalada.

According to surveys conducted in 1999, in the preceding year, over 2 million of the 8 million college students in the United States drove under the influence of alcohol and over 3 million rode with a drinking driver. Over 500,000 full-time 4-year college students were unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol and over 600,000 were hit or assaulted by another student who had been drinking.

Alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes kill someone every 31 minutes and non-fatally injure someone every two minutes (NHTSA 2006).
During 2005, 16,885 people in the U.S. died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, representing 39% of all traffic-related deaths (NHTSA 2006).

Now based on the reasoning of taking firearms away from everyone because 31,347 people die or are injured annually due to firearms, means that to address the actual threat people face that is most likely to kill them, or which results in the highest number of fatalities, all substances which are considered poison need to be illegalized, or controlled by the government, all drugs (that includes Grandma's pain killers, and Pop's kidney pills, and your Sisters sleeping pills), need to be criminalized and taken away, and obviously motor vehicles which kill tens of thousands a year need to be taken away and criminalized.

And these numbers do not include those who managed to fall off a ladder, trip and stab themselves while running with a pair of scissors, or fell out of the fishing boat and drowned, or choked on a steak at a restaurant.

There will always be the nearer do wells who think that because lil Johnnie fell of his tricycle and bashed his head against the curb that everyone should be made to wear a helmut to ride a tricycle, or that tricycles should just be banned. Case in point. A big deal has been made in recent years about brain injures from falling off bicycles, and helmuts are mandatory in some places, or people have been scarred to death and so they shell out the money to buy a helmut before they climb on a bike... (And the helmut manufacturers make a killing themselves off it). For lil Johnnie well perhaps it is a good idea for the little tyke.

But ever see someone wear a helmut ice skating? Walking on the subway platform? Climbing a ladder? Riding an escalator? Everyone who mounts a horse? Of course not, it would be ridiculas. Yet every year hundreds, perhaps thousands, die from just those activities. Yes it would protect you, but never the less is ridiculas. And for those who think mandates are good, imagine the government mandating everything you do, and eliminating anything that might be a danger.

Waking up in the morning and leaving the house is in many instances, in fact, in thousands of instances a day, is a life threatening event.

You staying home tomorrow under the covers? You should. Because leaving the house means you're taking a good chance on being killed. You may be bitten by a shark, hit by a car, fall down the stairs, slip on grape at the store and hit your head on the counter, or get electrocuted turning on the lights at work with hands not quite dryed from the restroom.

Eliminating dangerous things from life will not lead to life ever lasting unfortunately, it only appears so to those who's ox has been gored. When the 99 year old grandfather runs down a bunch of kids at the cross walk because in your opinion he has no business driving a car... Well now, all of a sudden to the parents of those kids that seems like a darn good idea. But Senator Snort knows that if he votes to ban cars to 99 year olds, his time in the Senate is up because anyone over 60 is not going to vote for Senator Snort.

So, what is your favorite thing? Food (how many die of obesity a year?). Football (how many die of brain injuries a year - we're closing in on finding out before you laugh, it might just be contact sports turn to be staring bans in the face soon). Flying a kite (how many automobile accidents take place when lil Suzie's kite goes down on the street out front and hits the windshield of some Soccer Mom's van and causes it to crash into a group of kids walking to the mall? And on and on.

No, banning things and government controls are not the answer. And for the stupids... There is no answer. Because, there ain' t no cure for stupid. So someone, somehow, sometime, somewhere, is always going to get themselves killed because they didn't, shouldn't, couldn't, wouldn't, and that's just a fact of life.

Costas is an idiot! OJ did NOT use a gun to kill Nicole Brown or Ron Goldman (yes I know, he was "not guilty" in the eyes of the court).

My uncle killed himself when I was about 9 1/2....and he did NOT use a gun, he got a dog chain and hung himself right outside his daughters window...

How could Costas say or agree with the statement about if Belcher did not have a gun, he and Kassandra Perkins would be alive. HE does not know that nor does anyone else. You can kill someone with your bare hands, and dude was big enough to achieve killing her using his hands, a knife, an object or tossing her down the stairs. You can't say if he did not have a gun he or she would be alive, too many ways to kill someone. If he wanted to kill her, then he is going to do it, whether its strangulation or a GSW.

But, alas, every time something happens, the liberals and the liberal media will say it is all about guns....

If someone had a gun in Columbine, or Colorado, or during the Gabby Giffords incident, it's possible that lives could have been saved..

Criminals are always going to get guns no matter what, look at Chicago and their anti-gun laws, that is really working huh??

Proud gun owner and so is my father, he taught me to respect guns, and use them for protection.....it's all about how you are brought up and raised.

F Bob Costas. Did Obama pay him to say that or what? I want my guns to protect myself from the government.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BengalsFan024

But point being If a person wants to kill someone or themselves there is always another way to do so...

Guns are simply a tool if they are used for Defensive measures or Offensive measures isnt based on the gun but the Person holding the gun..

dont blame guns. Blame stupid people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RedBengal9

I know I'm walking on thin ice here, so I will try to use as much tact as possible.

First of all I'm sorry for the loss your family suffered, I just said a prayer for them concerning the loss of your Uncle.

That being said how does your Uncle or the other person you know using a gun to kill themselves bring any relevance whatsoever to the gun debate?

If guns weren't available they would've found another one of the millions of ways possible to off themselves because their mental instabilites are causing them to lose focus of the big picture and are depressing them to the point that life isn't worth living.

We need to quit focusing on the guns and start focusing on the people. If somebody would've reached out to Belcher and gotten him some help this wouldn't have happened. Stop focusing on guns and start focusing on people.